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John Hardy
Raymond
UWRT 1103
30 November 2015
Family Tree Project: The Hardy Family
My immediate family is small, very small. First you have my dad, John Hardy, who is an
only child. His parents John and Bonnie Hardy are still alive and we are very close. Then you
have my mom, Anne Hardy, who has a brother, Ronald Boroughs, who is married but has no
children and doesnt plan on having any either. Both of my mothers parents are deceased, Hal
Boroughs, her dad, died when my mother was only 19, so I was never able to meet him, and her
mother Coleen Boroughs, died just over a year ago. So as far as families go we would be
considered quite small, but that doesnt mean we dont have a story.
First I will give you a background of my family. My dad was born in Siloam, North
Carolina, which is in Surry County and John and Bonnie Hardy raised him there. John is a cow
farmer as well and Bonnie is a retired nurse. My dad attended NC State for a degree in
agriculture and is now a fertilize salesmen as well as the owner of a four acre vineyard. My mom
was born in Asheboro, North Carolina, which is in Randolph County. She attended UNC
Greensboro to become a K-12 English teacher, and now works as a self contained English
teacher at Gentry elementary school in my hometown, Mount Airy, North Carolina. Her dad, Hal,
was born in Asheboro and was a war veteran. Before the war he worked as a part time barber
as well as a truck driver. Colleen, who was also born in Asheboro, was a cafeteria worker at a
local high school. My sister was also born in Mount Airy, and is currently attending UNC-Chapel
Hill in order to receive and dual major in psychology and art in order to be an art therapist. My
grandfather
My familys country of origin was Scotland. We didnt know this until about five years
ago, however. My grandma, Bonnie, seemed to believe that we have some type of Scottish

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ancestry so we went to a festival known as the Highland Games, which is held at Grandfather
Mountain. The festival is held every year and it is just a big Scottish party, it has traditional
dancing, music, food, sporting events and more. Most all of the people their have some type of
ancestry that leads back to Scotland This is where we found out that our family was from
Scotland and we found out we were apart of the Mackintosh Clan. This was very intriguing to
my mother who has always been interested in our ancestry. After doing some digging my mom
discovered we were from Glasgow, which is just over an hour west of the Edinburgh, the capital
of Scotland. We have yet to find any reasons why our ancestors decided to leave, but Im sure
my mother will find it eventually.
I know very little about my great grandparents. I have heard stories about them, of
course, but other than that I dont know anything about them. On my moms side her grandma
and grandpa on her moms side are Etter and Soloman Allen and they were both born in Star,
North Carolina. Soloman was a tobacco farmer and Etter worked in a textile mill manufacturing
socks. Then on my moms dads side there is William and Ola Boroughs who were both born in
Seagrove, North Carolina. William was also a tobacco farmer and Ola was a schoolteacher. My
dads grandparents on his moms side are Chester and Irene Simpson. Chester was a preacher
and ran a farm supply store and Irene was a housewife and they were both born in Ararat, NC.
Then my dads grandparents on his moms side were John Dale and Bessie Hardy. John Dale
was a tobacco farmer and Bessie was also a housewife, they were both born in Red Springs,
NC.
The Scottish flag contains a white X that connects the flag from either corner and is
surrounded by blue in the shape of triangles. The flag was originally adopted in the 15th century.
The X was originally surrounded by red but was then eventually changed so it didnt look so
common seeing as red was a predominate color in most flags since the red is considered a
color of power ("The History behind the Scottish Flag"). The current population of Scotland is
5.2 million and their government is a constitutional monarchy ("Scottish Facts and Information |

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Facts About Scotland"). Their currency is the pound and their biggest money making asset is
the mass amount of tourists that come to Scotland, which I would love to do someday.
Now that you know a little bit about where my family came from I will now talk about my
family itself. As stated before, my family is very small and we are all very close, so I know a
good deal about all of them. However, I will focus on my grandpa, Hal Boroughs, whom I have
never met. He died much before my time and according to my mom, we wouldve been best
friends. I didnt really know much about him up until about a year ago when my grandmother
past away. While going through her house my mom and uncle discovered a chest that contained
all of Hals things. More interestingly they found a shoebox that contained numerous letters my
grandmother had received from him while he was in the war. Neither my mom nor my uncle had
ever seen this. Before this box they knew very little about his involvement in the war and it was
largely kept a secret by grandma Coleen and grandpa Hal. Even when he arrived back home
little was said about what had happened. So this was the first real information they had ever
seen about his involvement in the war, and naturally, it brought my mom to tears. Along with the
letters they found a few pictures of him, war medals, his wallet, his old barber tools, and the flag
placed on his casket prior to being buried. My mom then took all the stuff we had found to a
local framing shop and got everything framed. It is now the centerpiece of our living room and I
have included a photo of it in my slideshow. Also, an interesting note, I am colorblind and I got it
from my grandfather. It skips a generation so my neither mother or uncle got it, but my mom was
a carrier so now I have it.
So as you can see my family is in fact very small. However I look at that as a blessing
rather then something negative. Since we have such a small family it has allowed me to connect
with everyone on a more personal level. Every Sunday after church my family goes and eats
with my grandparents, which was always something I looked forward too. Over the summers I
always enjoyed taking a few of my friends and going to my grandmas house. She would always
cook us lunch and then we would play with her dogs and help her around the house in anyway

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she needed. Memories like that are ones you never forget and if I didnt have such a small
family I doubt I would be able to have such valuable time with the ones I love and have grown
so close too.

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Works Cited
"The History behind the Scottish Flag." Flag of Scotland. Scotland Tour Company, 3 Nov. 2014.
Web. 13 Oct. 2015.
"Scottish Facts and Information | Facts About Scotland." Scotland.org. Scotland.com, 25 Feb.
2008. Web. 13 Oct. 2015.
"Death Records." Death Records Search Results. DOBSEARCH, 03 Jan. 1998. Web. 27 Oct.
2015.